Come to the Cabaret Old Chum:
Zaza Bar-Restaurant

BY ALEXIA
AMVRAZI

For
Timos Livaditis, the most significant
qualification required for opening Zaza, the
bar-restaurant he's been running sinceDecember
24
1999
, was gutsy creativity. Raised by what he
calls "conventional Greek parents," he was on
course to accomplishing a brilliant career in
the "respectable profession" of marketing. But
even in his suit and tie he felt like a fish
out of water in a stuffy and highly
competitive business environment.

After
finishing school inAthens
' Moraitis school, Livaditis went on to do a
university degree in marketing and sociology
inNew
York("I
threw sociology in to make my university
education more enticing and bearable"), after
which he returned toGreece
. "I never liked academia and the sciences.
Ever since I was a child I'd wanted to pursue
a far more creative profession. I grew up in a
neoclassical house and I could really envision
opening a cabaret in there. A place where
people could gather to have a drink and some
good food whilst enjoying scintillating
performances of all kinds. But my mother
always brushed off my 'absurd' ideas, telling
me to get serious."

The
thing is, Livaditis was very serious indeed
and, following several uninspiring and
dissatisfying years in the marketing world,
the person with a taste for drama, art and
extravagance and a passion for productive
self-fulfilment "dropped everything I'd ever
really known," and chased his dream without
looking back. Not once.

What is
now Zaza, on Kolonaki'sDeinokratous
Street
, used to be a restaurant owned by a friend of
Livaditis. He used to frequent the locale
because he was drawn to its "positive
atmosphere." "There's something magnetic about
this spot. Something in the air perhaps?" he
says. When his friend chose to close down her
business there, Livaditis, who had recently
invested some money in the stock market and
come out on a lucky streak, grabbed the chance
to materialise his plucky, vibrant visions of
a cabaret-style bar-restaurant of his own. He
admits to being a night-owl with a love of the
kind of life that awakens during the charged
finale of the day. Throughout his youth he has
investigated and developed a taste for
numerous clubs, bars, restaurants and other
haunts throughoutGreeceand
other countries he has visited.

qualities
required

Being a
natural born prince of the night does not,
however, mean that Livaditis is blessed with a
supernatural ability to find second or third
waves of renewed energy as the day progresses.
He works out and tries to keep healthy by
eating well and boozing little, but his job
often proves to be highly demanding of his
stamina.

"Running
a bar is not as fun and easy as people often
believe," he notes. "It demands enormous
amounts of patience, determination to see
things through and the organisation of all the
details so that things flow smoothly. Every
day is different from the last, and you can
never take things for granted or become
complacent." Apart from having to sustain such
attributes, he adds that if you're going to
work in this business you have to genuinely
like and believe in what you're doing.
"Enthusiasm, full interest and being an
extrovert are essential," he says. "You have
to truly enjoy the process of hosting and
serving others, of getting involved in their
lives and providing them with the best quality
you can, even, or rather particularly, if they
become good friends or regular
customers."

Zaza is
very much as Livaditis had envisioned it. He
had dreams of somewhere cheerful and
simultaneously sophisticated, rich in style as
well as ambience - a tricky challenge, judging
by so many locales which are unbeatable in
decor but totally lacking in atmosphere. The
result is the effort of his interior decorator
friend, Anastasia Fotidou, who listened
carefully when he proposed the concept to her,
and achieved the final look. Throughout the
year he has made it cosier by adding a layer
of good friends and loyal customers topped by
a sprinkling of items created and offered by
friends (such as the hand-made lantern-style
lamps hanging above the bar) and a dash of his
own art. The high eye-candy value of the place
thus indicates the owner's personality almost
as much as it would if one were visiting one's
own home.

Livaditis
reveals that the bar started working three
months later than originally scheduled (which
is a good thing if one considers the unique
day on which it finally did open its doors)
because of all the technicalities he had to
deal with. "The state offers absolutely no
help to facilitate the process of opening a
business like mine. The bureaucracy is
excruciating. After you've filled a thousand
forms and think it's all over, you discover -
sometimes almost accidentally - that there's
another million things to do!" he says,
exhaling emphatically at the memory. "And then
there are the workers such as painters,
plumbers, electricians, who, even if you're
paying them as arranged, will take their time
and do things at whatever pace they please.
They too seem to relish in launching
unpleasant surprise-attacks on your nerves
when you least expect it." He adds, however,
that it all becomes worth it when he sees
people come in for the first time and admire
the finished result.

typical
day

It
appears as though Livaditis has still not
overcome the stigma, which he says was created
by his folks, of his current work being
considered somewhat fluffy in relation to his
initial professional path. He seems to need to
prove that his work is indeed something that
should be taken seriously. "I have never
worked as hard as I do in this field," he
says. "I wake up at9.30amevery
day, even if I went to sleep at six that
morning. The late nights haven't yet taken
their toll on me," says the 32-year-old,
reading my mind, "but it's probably inevitable
that as the years go by I'll find it harder to
function properly unless I get more
rest."

Shopping
at the food markets is top on this man's daily
list (and then he worries that his work makes
finding a wife "near impossible"?). "Maybe
because it's all still relatively new to me, I
love choosing the food for our restaurant
myself every day," he gushes. "And you
discover all kinds of interesting things as
you go along." By example he relates being
told when he went to buy a certain type of
fish that it wasn't sold that day because
there had been a full moon the previous night,
and the fish are too scared of the moonlight
to swim near the surface. "As a student I
hardly cooked and ate mostly junk-food," he
confesses, "but I've always enjoyed trying new
foods around the world and I like to introduce
new flavours." Mornings are also taken up by
unavoidable bureaucratic chores - insurance,
taxes, etc.

He has
his siesta for a couple of hours to recharge
for the evening ahead, then pops into Zaza and
helps prepare, returns home and then sets off
into the core of the night for the next nine
hours of work. "My time at home is precious to
me," he says. "It gives me a chance to do the
things I love, like paint, make T-shirts or
practise playing the bongos, which I'm taking
a course on right now. I like to listen to all
kinds of music, depending on my mood, from
arias to jazz-funk, and relish my own
silence."

Being
on the job is often extremely demanding on
Livaditis' spirit. "By nature I'm anxious and
somewhat of an introvert," he says. "I'm not
the most self-confident and chilled-out person
I know. I've changed a lot in that respect
over the past year, but sometimes it's still
daunting having to chat endlessly and
facetiously with practical strangers, or to
walk around with a smile plastered on my
face." As we talk he quite awkwardly exclaims
several times, "Sorry. I know I'm talking too
much." I tell him that's the whole point of an
interview. I can't figure out, however,
whether he really is as shy and insecure as he
makes himself out to be. After all, if he
were, could he last so long?

"My
girlfriend, who works in the same field, is by
now used to how I am when I get home.
Basically, after the bar closes, I'm so wired
up I need to go somewhere else for a while
just to wind down." Livaditis stresses the
importance of balance in this kind of work.
"And when I finally go home I simply don't say
a word to her for half an hour."

future
plans

Livaditis
isn't yet fully satisfied. The cabaret vision
has been materialised but not fulfilled. He
wants more. "I'm constantly thinking of new
ways in which to make this place more like a
cabaret," he muses. "The main obstacle is that
if you're going to have live acts, you're
going to make noise, and this neighbourhood
isn't particularly thrilled by that idea." As
he talks of bongo-playing, jazz singing,
theatre and belly dancers his eyes light up.
So do mine. "Wouldn't it be great if, just out
of the blue, a belly dancer were to appear
whilst people are eating and glitteringly
snake around the place?"

Yes it
would. And let's just hope he does it. A good
sound-proof system could be a bit of a
struggle to set up, but when the fruitful
ideas and infectious enthusiasm are there,
what is there to worry about?

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